Mikey Garcia voiced the idea that Bob Arum, the promoter of Vasily Lomachenko, will not allow his boxer to fight him. Garcia himself sees no reason to avoid meeting with the Ukrainian. At the same time, Bob Arum repeatedly stated that if problems arise in the organization of this fight, they will be only of financial origin, since at the moment the purses of both boxers have exceeded one million, and the overall prize of the fight will be rather large.
“If he wants to move up to 35, we can definitely do that,” Garcia said. “I know Bob won’t say anything positive about that. I don’t even know if Lomachenko is actually interested in facing me. The way I know Top Rank works, they’ll have somebody else in line for him to win a title at 35 or maybe even at 40. Most likely, he’s not gonna wanna face me because Bob won’t allow it.”
“I don’t think he would [allow us to fight],” Garcia said. “I think Bob Arum has been doing business for so well, for so long, the way he runs his business, that it’s not in his best interest to face me with his fighters. Whether it’s financial reasons or taking a loss or whatever, I think he’s not gonna be very excited to work, do business with me. But I know Lomachenko would take the fight, and I also would take that fight. So maybe down the road we could actually have that fight.”